Montini: Jeff Flake calls Donald Trump’s press attacks Stalin-esque

“Our current libel laws are a sham and a disgrace and do not represent American values or American fairness so we’re going to take a strong look at that,” comments from President Trump on Wednesday as he spoke to reporters during a meeting of his Cabinet. The President announced plans for his administration to review whether U.S. libel laws can be strengthened amid the launch of the new book Fire And Fury in which many of the author Micheal Wolff's accounts from within the White House, question the Presidents mental fitness to serve as president.
Wochit

EJ Montini: Before you criticize the senator you should know he has Thomas Jefferson on his side.

“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

President Trump would disagree. (So, which president understands the American ideal better -- Trump or Jefferson? Hmm.)

From well before he got elected Trump has tried to do what dictators like Stalin have done. He's tried to get the people to believe him – and only him – over the thousands of men and women working in the media.

Trump wants you to believe only him

He has tried to convince regular people that the media – which is made up of regular people – is the enemy.

Appearing on ABC’s This Week Flake said, “When you reflexively refer to the press as the ‘enemy of the people’ or fake news, that has real damage. It has real damage to our standing in the world. And I noted how bad it is for a president to take what was popularized by Joseph Stalin—the enemy of the people, to refer to the press.”

Flake elaborated on those comments on another program.

Speaking to MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt, Flake said, “I’m saying he (Trump) borrowed that phrase. (Enemy of the people). It was popularized by Josef Stalin, used by Mao as well — enemy of the people. It should be noted that Nikita Khrushchev who followed Stalin, forbade its use, saying that was too loaded and that it maligned a whole group or class of people, and it shouldn't be done. I don't think that we should be using a phrase that's been rejected as too loaded by a Soviet dictator."